As eighth-place grows more distant, failings late are magnified

Published 6:30 am, Wednesday, February 24, 2010

Kevin Martin, who gets his first start as a Rocket tonight, could be called on when the game is close.

Kevin Martin, who gets his first start as a Rocket tonight, could be called on when the game is close.

Photo: James Nielsen, Chronicle

Rockets anything but clutch in recent cold stretch

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The games are tight, filled with the usual mix of highs and lows along the way, with their fate to be decided in those crucial final minutes.

Defenses tighten. Timeouts are hoarded. Every basket and every stop become vital.

That's when that chilling thought hits. The Rockets have been there far too often to fight it.

“You get to the end of the game, it's like, ‘Here we go again,' ” Aaron Brooks said. “We're missing shots. It kind of plays with you.”

As much as NBA games are said to routinely come down to the final minutes, for the Rockets, so has their February slide to five losses in six games. They have not won a close game since Jan. 29. They are 2-7 at home since beginning their late-January six-game homestand that was expected to kick-start a playoff run. They are 3-5 in February, with almost every loss coming with a protracted late-game breakdown.

“You look at all the games we lost,” coach Rick Adelman said. “We get to that fourth quarter, and then we start getting stagnant. We start having to take tougher shots because they're locked in on you.”

In their past three losses, the Rockets succumbed to a 10-0 late-game run against the Jazz, a 14-0 run against the Pacers and a 14-2 run against the Hornets. Against the Jazz, they held a three-point lead when the collapse hit. Against the Pacers and Hornets, they were within two.

Forcing the issue

“They just really lock in on who you're going to go to, what they're going to do,” Adelman said. “Like Aaron … you play pick-and-roll, they're going to stay with him, just double him and make him throw it to somebody else. He has to adjust to that. We have to do a better job of finding people, and people have to make shots.

“(The Rockets should) make the extra pass and find out what's open, not just force the issue. I think we've been really forcing the issue when the game is on the line.”

The solutions are not very different from the philosophy throughout the games. In the Rockets' recent wins, especially in the blowout of the Bucks when they led by as much as 40, they moved the ball rapidly, finding wide-open shooters. But at the end of tight games, they have slowly moved into defenses' traps. With open shots being missed, the frustration has mounted, the ball movement has slowed, and the late-game pattern has grown more inescapable.

Execution at a premium

“In the NBA, it becomes a lot more physical game down the stretch,” Shane Battier said. “Execution is needed. There is a premium on running your sets and getting good shots. You can't have looseness.

“We know we've struggled late in games. We have a tough time manufacturing points. We just need to find something to build momentum.”

That will not be easy, particularly tonight, with the Orlando Magic bringing one of the league's top defenses, followed by a back-to-back against the Spurs and Jazz. Difficult as it might be to win the first 43 minutes, the real challenge will be to triumph in the last five.

“We just want to do the same thing, which is move the ball side-to-side, and we've got to hit the open shots when the opportunity presents itself,” Brooks said. “I just want to start having some success at the end of the games so we start thinking about that instead of the other.”